Theatre and Dance Reviews

It has been a long time since I encountered 'Hobson's Choice'.

We read it at school and I recall doing a passable Lancashire accent as Henry Hobson but I can't remember who my inspiration was. If I were doing it today it would almost certainly be based on Fred Elliot, John Savident's larger than life pie purveyor from "Coronation Street".

That's why the part of Hobson fits Savident like a glove or one of Will Mossop's up market handmade boots. Savident is a fine character actor and to his credit, although the Salford accent is similar, there is not one nuance of Fred Elliot in this performance.

For a large man he has an incredible range of voice and expressions and he uses his rubbery face to great effect. He is one of those actors who do not need to speak to say a thousand words- think of Dame Judi Dench in "Cranford" and you'll know what I mean. If anything the play loses it's power and pace when Savident isn't on stage and that's a credit to his presence rather than a criticism of the rest of the cast. It's also good to see actors new to the profession getting the chance to tour with a master of his trade.

Hobson's Choice

There are other excellent performances. Carolyn Backhouse was brilliantly scheming and acerbic as Hobson's eldest daughter Maggie and Dylan Charles played the somewhat hapless William Mossop with the right level of pathos to allow his character to emerge stronger at the end of the play. I felt though that some of the younger cast members struggled to flesh out their more insubstantial characters. That may well be the fault of Brighouse's play though.

Although a comedy, the ending is not a happy one, and without reading the programme or the interview with Savident elsewhere on this site, I  made the  comparison to Shakespeare's "King Lear". Hobson has to choose between his three daughters although two reject him and the other breaks him. Hobson at the end also reminded me of Shylock, broken by a chain of events that weren't necessarily evil. Shylock sought  revenge  for persecution: Hobson was just being careful with his money. He believed he looked after his daughters well but he stifled them and this was a play performed at a time when women were becoming empowered.

The set is superb, rotating to offer five realistic scenes. The trapdoor in the middle of the counter is a brilliant device as the artisans emerge from the horrors of the workshop below, in their place just as Hobson will never aspire to Manchester and the quality shoe trade.

This is a good and thoroughly engaging production, although the excellence of John Savident means that the action does plod a little when he's offstage. That said, once again it's a privilege to see one of our finest character actors plying his trade in the Three Counties